Table 1.

Study characteristics of included studies

Author, Year (reference no.)	Country1	WHO region	Data sources mortality	Data sources morbidity
Begg, 2008 [13]	Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Disease registers, cohort and intervention studies and surveys
Bowie, 1997 [22]	South and West region, England	EURO	1992 Office of Population Censuses and Surveys age-specific mortality data	World bank study
Bradshaw, 2003 [14]	South Africa	AFRO	1) Statistics South Africa, 2) Population Register, 3) National Injury Mortality Surveillance Study, 4) For children: 1996 census and the 1998 Demographic and Health Survey	The South African Birth Defects Surveillance System
Bundhamchareon, 2002 [16]	Thailand	SEARO	Survey of Population Change	Disease registers, routine databases or epidemiological studies
Chapman, 2006 [41]	Zimbabwe	AFRO	Vital Registration System and number of deaths for 1997 taken from a nationwide census	Local disease registers, surveys and routine health service data supplemented by estimates from epidemiological studies from other settings
Dodhia, 2008 [50]	London, England	EURO	Local mortality data	The GBD estimates from World Health Organization were used
Hyder, 2000 [40]	Pakistan	EMRO	Pakistan Demographic Survey of 1989, Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey 1990–1991, National Health Survey of Pakistan 1989–1994	More than 180 national and local data sources were reviewed to obtain information on diseases in Pakistan
Innove Solutions, 1998 [51]	West Pennine, England	EURO	National mortality data from Public Health Department	West Pennine Health Authority morbidity data
Jankovic, 2007 [52]	Serbia and Serbia Montenegro	EURO	Serbian Office of Statistics mortality database	Disease registers, routine databases, and epidemiological studies
Laaser, 2007 [38]	Syria	EMRO	National mortality register, analysis of the WHO life table of Syria and mortality sentinel surveillance	National databases
Lai, 2009 [27]	Estonia	EURO	Vital registration of Statistics Estonia	Estonian Health Insurance Fund database
Lopez, 2006 [9]	Global	Global	Death registrations, population-based epidemiological studies, disease registers, and notification systems.	Disease registers, epidemiological studies, health surveys, and health facility data
Mathers, 2001 [28]	Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Disease registers and epidemiological studies
Melse, 2000 [21]	Netherlands		Dutch death registration	General practitioner registrations, national registries, and population surveys
Michaud, 2006 [35]	United States	AMRO	Mortality File from the National Center for Health Statistics 1996	National health surveys, the National Hospital Discharge Database, disease registers, and epidemiological studies
Murray, 1997 [10]	Global	21 regions in the world	Death registration systems, sample death registration systems, epidemiological assessments, cause of death models	Disease registers, population surveys, epidemiological studies, health facility data
Naghavi, 2009 [31]	Iran	EMRO	data from the national death registry of Health Ministry ME	Disease surveillance systems, hospital disease registries, representative national surveys, subnational and local studies.
Phua, 2009 [39]	Singapore, Malaysia	WPRO	Registry of Births and Deaths	National disease registers and surveillance or notification systems, national health surveys, health services utilization data
Pike, 2002 [30]	Queensland, Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Australian BoD YLD data
SA Department of Health Australia, 2005 [12]	South Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Disease registers and epidemiological studies
Somerford, 2004 [29]	Western Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Australian BoD YLD data
Stevens, 2008 [26]	Mexico	AMRO	National Mortality statistics	Vital statistics, national censuses, health examination surveys, and published epidemiological studies
Tobias, 2001 [20]	New Zealand	WPRO	New Zealand Health Information Service mortality	Disease registers, population surveys, hospital discharge register
Ünüvar, 2004 [15]	Turkey	EURO	Death statistics obtained from provincial and town centers in Turkey, hospital records and Directorate General of Security data	Population Census, Records obtained from government agencies, National surveys, national and international reports and articles
Victorian BOD, 2005 [19]	Victoria, Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Disease registers, routine databases and population health surveys
World Health Organization, 2008 [8]	Global	21 regions in the world	Death registration systems, sample death registration systems, epidemiological assessments, cause of death models	Disease registers, population surveys, epidemiological studies, health facility data
World Health Organization, 2009 [11]	Global	21 regions in the world	Death registration systems, sample death registration systems, epidemiological assessments, cause of death models	Disease registers, population surveys, epidemiological studies, health facility data
Yoon, 2007 [24]	Korea	SEARO	The Korean National Health Insurance system	Large normative cohort
Yusoff, 2004 [17]	Malaysia	WPRO	Malaysian mortality data of the Department of Statistics subdivided in four regions	Disease registries, routine databases and epidemiological studies
Zhao, 2004 [18]	Northern Territory, Australia	WPRO	Australian death registry from Australian Bureau of Statistics	Disease registers, population surveys, expert opinions
Zhou, 2011 [36]	Yunnan Province, China	WPRO	Medical death certificate information from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention	Indirect method: YLD/YLL ratio for China taken from the WHO World Health Report 2002

¹ Country / region and country of the study population.